Should expensive private schooling be banned?
Before this essay begins its investigation we must first establish our parameters of
study as well as understand the propositions terms. This essay will focus upon
providing the philosophical framework to defend the existence of expensive private
schooling, with the main proponents against being John Rawls and Adam Swift and
those in favour being Elizabeth Anderson and with (insert) as well as extrapolating
and exploring the practical implications of private schooling in the context of the
current UK educational system in both an economic and cultural sense. By drawing
attention to the idea of 'expensive' or the concept of 'more expensive' the question is
able to transcend one single system of education. Though it is not applicable to our
specific point of study (the UK education system), it is important to note that many
education systems have low cost private schooling catering to the majority and then
more expensive private schooling catering to few, which for all intensive purposes
creates a similar paradigm to the one being discussed here. The contention of this
essay is that, although there are convincing arguments against having expensive
private schools, namely the promotion of equality, Adam Swifts efficiency and
solidarity objections or the underlying principle of 'equality of opportunity' presented
by John Rawls, private schooling should not be banned. As through the doctrine of
sufficiency and an investigation into Elizabeth Anderson’s ‘Rethinking equality of
opportunity’ this essays contends that justice in education and society requires that
everybody gets 'enough', not that everybody has the same. Moreover it is entirely
unfeasible to truly provide an equality of opportunity in education, as well as the often
accredited by those against expensive private schooling ‘meritocratic ideal’ being
inapplicable or undesirable in the K-12 context. Furthermore by providing a 'superior'
good you promote competition within education and incentivise parents to become
more efficient economic agents and send their children to superior schools and
maintain the important and entrenched principle of liberty in society.
Paragraph one:
 Explain the concept of equality and how it is normally in some form the
building blocks to an equality of opportunity argument or an argument
against Private Schooling.
 Focus on the nature of unequal distribution of natural talents and
therefore the inherent nature of inequality in society and even with Rawls
‘Veil of Ignorance’ we know that strict equality shouldn’t be the aim of
education.
Paragraph two:
 Covering the main points of Adam Swifts ‘How not to be a hypocrite’ work
with reference to both Rawls’ work on the equality of opportunity and
Young account of IQ + Effort with the argument being ‘depend on how
intelligent she is, and how much effort she is prepared to make’.
 Reintroduce Anderson and her ‘Rethinking equality of opportunity’ and
how ‘‘equality of opportunity is a efficient allocator for deciding who, out of
those with developed talents and motivation, should be able to access the best
jobs or university places. As Anderson writes, it is inappropriate for guiding
us in the allocation of K-12 educational opportunities, where both the talent
and motivation of those seeking education, and the structure of educational

opportunities, are endogenous to the decision being made’ (Anderson, 2004:
101).
Coverage of ‘queue jumping’ and ‘efficiency objection’ with Anderson and
others to counter.
Paragraph three
 Argue for the conception of justice, as Anderson writes ‘democratic
equality’, whereby all members of the state are entitled to opportunities
sufficient to enable them to function as equal citizens in a democratic
society.
 Focus on how ‘democratic equality’ is egalitarian in its conception of just
relationships among citizens, but sufficientarian in its conception of
justice in the distribution of resource and opportunities
 Reinforce the central premise that, it is important not that everyone has
equal opportunities to secure jobs / higher education but that everyone
has enough.
Paragraph four:
 What is enough?
 Enough to ensure that the elites of society – public offices and private
positions with decision making authority – fully integrated, containing
significant representation of all social classes.
 Universities are the gatekeepers to elite status in modern society.
 Therefore democratic equality requires that the states provides
ecuational opportunities sufficient to ensure that any child from any
social background has the opportunity to quality for Universitiy, if she
provides a normal and not extraordinary amount of effort.
Paragraph 5:
 The true case against private schools is that of the solidarity objection.
 To abolish private schools would require coercive state action which
would destroy the principle of liberty that is so long legally entrenched.
 Remove the incentivisation nature of it: namely that one of the greatest
incentives that makes members of society work hard is the provision of
opportunities for their offspring.
Paragraph on practicalities (6):
 Steps taken to neutralize the bad effects of private schools on social
solidarity.
 University admissions policies that neutralize some of the advantages
from attending private schools
 Introduction of policies to reduce the class segregation of public schools
due to the class segregation of catchment areas.
o Reduction of local governments power regarding zoning and
planning powers – when used to exclude the poor.
Conclusion:



Therefore the objection that this essay notes as the most persuasive is
that of Swifts ‘communitarian’, democracy requires a civic community of
equality and a socially integrated leadership.
Therefore Anderson’s ‘rethinking equality of opportunity’ provides a
much more conclusive argument; in that democratic equality is
egalitarian in its conception of just relationships among citizens, but
sufficientarian in its conception of justice in the distribution of resource
and opportunities
The provision of some neutralizing policies would counteract a lot of the
problems of inegalitarian social divisions sometimes associated with
private schooling however to abolish them on this grounds would be to
counter individual and societal liberty.